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Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Chen Song paid a courtesy call on newly elected President Ram Chandra Paudel in Sheetal Niwas on Wednesday. During the meeting, the Chinese Ambassador congratulated him on his election to the post of President and wished for a successful tenure. According to Sagar Acharya, spokesperson at the President’s Office, they discussed various matters related to bilateral cooperation and other issues of mutual interests.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 15. 76 points to close at 1,933.29 points on Wednesday. Similarly, the sensitive index dropped by 2. 30 points to close at 363. 91 points. A total of 3,777,400 unit shares of 266 companies were traded for Rs 1. 33 billion. Meanwhile, Maya Khola Hydropower Company Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 9. 98 percent. Likewise, Bottler Nepal (Terai) Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 7. 62 percent. At the end of the day, the total market capitalization stood at Rs 2. 79 trillion.

Provincial and local governments will receive a lower budget in fiscal equalization grants from the federal government in the next fiscal year 2023/24. Given the central government’s reduced budget allocation and spending capacity in the wake of a drastic decline in revenue collection in this fiscal year, the National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission has recommended the federal government to downsize fiscal equalization grants in the next fiscal year than the amounts transferred in the current fiscal year 2022/23. According to the commission’s recommendation, provincial and local governments should be provided as much as Rs 146bn under the fiscal equalization grant, a drop of Rs 15.64bn from Rs 161.66bn in FY 2022/23. Of the total amount recommended for fiscal transfer, Rs 58.66bn is for the provincial governments and Rs 37.35bn is for the 753 local governments. The federal government provides grants to the sub-national governments under four headings of fiscal equalization grant, conditional grant, supplementary grant, and special grant. Of them, the fiscal equalization grant is provided to implement the provincial and local governments’ budgetary programs. Conditional grants are provided to pay the liabilities of the central government or to implement its programs. “The commission reduced the fiscal equalization grant to be provided to the provincial and local government because of downsized resources forecast for the next fiscal year by the Resource Estimation Committee,” said a senior official of the commission. The committee is headed by the vice-chairperson of the National Planning Commission. “We recommended the amount to be transferred to the sub-national government under fiscal equalization grant after the Resource Estimation Committee estimated the potential resources and spending limit,” the official said. The National Resource Estimate Committee has estimated the resources availability of Rs 1,688bn for FY 2023/24 including from the government’s revenue, internal loans, external loans, and external grants. The projected resource availability is far less than the total budget size of the current fiscal year at Rs 1,793.83bn. The budget size was trimmed to Rs 1,549.83bn through the mid-term review of the current fiscal year. The committee has estimated the federal government’s revenue to grow by an average of 14 percent in the next three fiscal years. “With the resource estimation committee not making a bold resource prediction, we also had to recommend the allocation of a fiscal equalization grant to provincial and the local governments,” said the commission official. A conservative projection of resource availability was made as the country’s economy is in a downturn contributing to sluggish revenue collection. With the economy slowing down amid reduced market demands for goods and services, both import-based revenue and inland revenue have gone down this fiscal year. According to the Financial Comptroller General Office, the revenue collection as of March 19 of the current fiscal year stood at Rs 591bn, a sharp drop from Rs 691bn during the same period last fiscal year. According to the Department of Customs (DoC), the customs offices across the country collected Rs 250bn as of March 14 against the target of Rs 433bn which accounts for around 58 percent of the target. “The impact of the policy reversal on import control has not been reflected in the customs revenue,” said a senior DoC official.  The country receives nearly half of its revenue through taxing imported goods. Import taxes on vehicles fall among the largest sources of revenue. But even after the government lifted the import ban, the automobile dealers have not rushed to import the vehicles.  The automobile dealers have not yet cleared around 2800 four-wheelers parked at the customs yards, according to the customs officials. These vehicles were imported in recent months based on a letter of credit opened before the government imposed a ban on the import of vehicles along with foreign alcohol and expensive mobile sets among others in April last year. The inland revenue collection has also remained sluggish. According to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD),  the revenue collection as of March 14 this fiscal year stood at 79.68 percent of the target. The government collected Rs 281.99bn as of May 14 against the target of Rs 353.91bn. The collection is poorer than the total inland revenue collection during the same period last fiscal year 2021/22. According to IRD, it had collected as much as Rs 284.88bn during the same period last fiscal year. Meanwhile, the commission has also set the standards for providing conditional grants to provincial and local governments. “The federal government will itself decide on the conditional grant based on the standards we set,” the commission official said.

WorldLink Communications, a leading internet service provider in Nepal, has received a series B investment of Rs 1.08bn ($8.4m) from the British International Investment (BII), the UK government’s development finance institution, and Rs 900m ($6.9m) from Dolma Impact Fund II. WorldLink had already received Rs 1.35bn ($12m) from BII in October 2019. With the latest series of funding, the total foreign investment in the company has reached Rs 3.33bn ($27.2m), the largest so far in the country's internet services industry. WorldLink is the country's largest private-sector ISP with more than 750,000 customers. According to the company, the money from the latest funding will be used to speed up its internet expansion activities across the country focusing on rural areas. Of late, the company has been expanding its services to rural Nepal with Karnali Province getting WorldLink FTTH service recently. According to WorldLink, the investment by BII and Dolma will further help to create an additional 1,000 jobs in the company. The capital provided by BII and DIF II will speed up internet expansion activities, said WorldLink. "It will enable WorldLink to provide reliable internet service to more small and medium enterprises and households," the company said in a press statement. "The wholeheartedness shown by BII and DIF II furthers our aim to transform WorldLink into an international-level company. The partnership has additionally motivated our aim to ‘connect anytime and anywhere’ and provided added excitement to speed up the further expansion of the network,” said Dileep Agrawal, chairman and managing director of WorldLink Communications. According to Abhinav Sinha, managing director and head of technology and telecoms at BII, their second investment will support WorldLink to further penetrate hard-to-reach areas in Nepal with reliable and affordable internet service, creating more jobs and opportunities to stimulate growth within the economy.

Police have arrested five persons for their alleged involvement in helping Tibetan refugees to get Nepali citizenship. The suspects have been identified as Krishna Bahadur Katuwal of Kachankawal, Jhapa, Nucleas Shrestha of Babarmahal, Kathmandu, Hira Lal Shivakoti of Sundarharaicha, Morang, Lopsang Thinle of Shuklagandaki, Tanahun and Bijay Lama of Godawai, Lalitpur. A team deployed from the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office apprehended them from Babarmahal. Somendra Singh Rathaur, spokesperson at the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office, said that they were involved in helping Tibetan refugees to obtain Nepali citizenship. They used to charge Rs 300, 000 to 500, 000 per person. Police said that they are looking into the case.  

While there has been growth in the number of five-star hotel properties in the country over the years, very few of them are publicly listed companies. As of now, only four hotel companies are listed on Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse). Now, one more hotel is planning to go public. City Hotels Limited which runs the five-star property Hyatt Place has received permission from the Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon) for the initial public offering (IPO). The board has permitted the company to issue 1.674 units of ordinary shares worth Rs 167.4m at a base price of Rs 100 per share. The company is issuing 10 percent shares of its issued capital of Rs 1.674bn to the general public. City Hotels, a Golyan Group company, developed and brought the 153-room Hyatt Place into operation in Kathmandu one and a half years ago. Once the company completes IPO issuance, City Hotels Limited will be the fifth hotel company to be listed on Nepse. Till now, the hotel sector has been represented by four companies, namely Orients Hotel Ltd, Taragaon Regency Hotels Limited, Soaltee Hotel Limited, and Chandragiri Hills, in the domestic stock market. All four companies listed on the Nepse have posted net profits in the second quarter of FY 2022/23. Soaltee Hotel Limited posted a profit of Rs 251.43m in the second quarter of this fiscal, according to the company’s statement. The company posted a profit of Rs 40m during the same period of FY 2021/22. Orients Hotel Ltd. which runs a five-star property Radisson has recorded a profit of Rs 36.57m in the second quarter of FY 2022/23, compared to a loss of Rs 80m in the same period of FY 2021/22. Taragaon Regency Hotels Limited, which operates the Hyatt Regency Hotel has posted a profit of Rs 106.16m in the second quarter of this fiscal compared to a loss of Rs 1.25m in the same period of the last fiscal. The Chandragiri Hills, which operates a cable car and a five-star luxury resort in Kathmandu, reported a net profit of Rs 51.48m in the second quarter of 2022/23. The company which is the new entrant in the Nepse posted a net loss of Rs 5.8m in the second quarter of 2021/22. Among these four companies, only Soaltee Hotel Limited has announced dividends to its shareholders. The company's 48th annual general meeting decided to distribute a 26.31 percent dividend from the last fiscal year's profit.

The price of gold has dropped by Rs 2, 000 per tola in the domestic market on Wednesday. According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the yellow bullion is being traded at Rs 107, 800 per tola today. The yellow metal was traded at Rs 109, 800 per tola on Tuesday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 107, 300 per tola. Similarly, the price silver has dropped by Rs 5 and is being traded at Rs 1,335 per tola today.

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) is planning to introduce a new index 'Nepse 50' for share trading. The country's sole stock exchange aims to launch the 'Nepse 50' within the current fiscal year. According to stock exchange officials, a preliminary draft of the new index titled 'Procedures for Development, Management, and Regulation of Index, 2079' has been prepared and is currently being discussed internally within the Nepse. A senior official close to the matter said that the proposed procedure related to 'Nepse 50' is being discussed with the board of the Nepse. "Preliminary discussions are being held about this now. We are planning to launch the index next month (April)," he said. The Nepse is currently updating the data of the last five years of all the listed companies. It is said that after the data is ready, it will be tested and only after the complete procedure is ready, it will be conducted. Nepse has envisioned Nepse 50 as an index based on the share trading of 50 selected companies. The new index will comprise the top 50 companies in Nepse in terms of market capitalization and liquidity and will serve as a barometer for the Nepali stock market. According to Nepse officials, the NEPSE 50 Index will be calculated based on the market capitalization of common shares of 50 listed companies that are eligible for trading and clearing multiplied by the share trading price of that company. The companies which will be included in the Nepse 50 Index must have traded 25 percent or more of the shares to the general public. Similarly, they should have an average daily turnover of Rs 2.5 million or more for the period of six months. They should have an average daily transaction of 5,000 shares or above. The companies should have a minimum of more than 75 percent of trading days in the six months period. According to Nepse officials, the proposed index will have criteria such as maintaining the presence of companies from all sectors in the index ranging from the minimum to the highest amount, turnover share, number of turnovers, and companies with turnover. The Nepse 50 Index can later be traded as a derivative instrument.